Famed Appeaser of Hitler is Just the Man to Negotiate Our
Surrender Say Democrats

In their rush to try
to appease the Republican demand that Democrats give in on all of their
principal demands with respect to the fiscal cliff, the party has engaged
former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to negotiate for them. Mr. Chamberlain is famous for his
negotiations with Adolf Hitler in 1938 in which his appeasement resulted, in
his words, “peace for our time”.

Chamberlain arrives at Munich, 29 September 1938.

Here from Wikipedia is a direct quote.

My good friends, this is the second time there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Now I recommend you go home, and sleep quietly in your beds.

World War II and its tens of millions of deaths resulted about a year later. Most Britons could not sleep quietly in their beds as German bombs blasted the nation.

Mr. Chamberlain is quoted
as saying “If Democrats are willing to ignore their election victory and
try to provide Republicans with everything Republicans want I think an
agreement can be reached.” Democratic
leaders added that this type of thinking was why they called on Mr.
Chamberlain, even though he has been deceased for many decades. “A dead man personifies our negotiating
posture in so many ways” they said.

Republican were
unsure that the Democrat’s approach would work, saying they may have to be
given more than they were demanding in order to reach a deal.

Late breaking news is
that the Republicans want Vice President Biden to resign and for Mitt
Romney to be the new Vice President under any deal struck between Democrats and
Republicans on new tax rates.

“Mitt Romney got tens of millions
of votes” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and he went on to add “that
if the Democrats were really serious about negotiating they would allow Mr.
Romney to be Vice President.”

When asked about Constitutional issues with that
proposal the Republicans went on to say that failure to allow Mr. Romney to be
Vice President was discrimination against Mormons, and since that was
Unconstitutional itself, making Mr. Romney Vice President had to be
Constitutional.

Democrats and President Obama were seeking to reach a
compromise with Republicans on the issue, and had offered to allow Mr. Romney
to be President for 3 days a week, and to allow Republicans veto power over
Cabinet choices and to select the next 8 Supreme Court Justices as long as
Republicans would agree to a 5% tax decrease on people making over $2 billion a
year.

Republicans were said to be studying that counter
offer but were reluctant to agree to anything less than a 10% tax cut for
billionaires, whom they said were the backbone of the country.

The Truth – About Everyone Other Than Republicans Are Morally Superior to
Republicans

The New York Times
employs a gentleman named David Brooks to try and balance its opinion
columns. Mr. Brooks occasionally has a
correct insight into reality, but most of the time he is just biased and naïve. He gives lip service to the idea that Republicans have faults, but deep down he is blindly partisan. Here for example is his
complaint about the President.

"Most of the blame still has to go to Republicans. They’ve had a brain freeze since the election. They have no strategy. They don’t know what they want. They have to decide what they want," Brooks said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "But if I had to fault President Obama, I would say that sometimes he governs like a visitor from a morally superior civilization.

"He comes in here, and he will not — he’ll talk with [House Speaker John] Boehner, [but] he won’t talk with the other Republicans. He hasn’t built the trust."

Gosh Mr. Brooks, you need to check with the
Republicans before you say stupid things like this, and in particular you need
to talk with the ones that think a woman cannot get pregnant from rape, that a
pregnancy that does result from rape is God’s intention, that torture is a
proper way for the U. S.
to behave in war, that evolution is liberal hoax, that global warming is not occurring and a whole bunch of other things that would lead only a blind
ideologue to conclude that the rest of the country is not morally superior to
Republicans.

When Are Dems Going to Learn that Republicans Will Never
Deal? See Answer Below

Negotiations continue
at this point over a tax deal that would prevent the nation from returning
to the Clinton
era tax rates, and cause a tax increase on low and middle income
taxpayers. Democrats campaigned on
allowing the tax rates to revert only for those making more than $250,000. And they won that campaign.

Now in negotiations
they have apparently offered
to increase that number to $450,000 and to also cave on the Estate Tax.

With a New Year’s Eve
deadline hours away, Democrats abandoned their earlier demand to raise tax
rates on household income over $250,000 a year, as President Obama vowed during
the recent presidential campaign.

They also relented on the
politically sensitive issue of the estate tax, according to a detailed account
of the Democratic offer obtained by The Washington Post, promising to stage a
vote in the Senate that would guarantee that taxes on inherited estates remain
at their current low levels, a key GOP demand.

Republicans had earlier gone along with that cave in, but of
course once that cave in was agreed to the Republicans just increased their
demands.

Still, McConnell (R-Ky.), the
Senate minority leader, was holding out to set the income threshold for tax
increases even higher, at $550,000, according to people close to the talks in
both parties. And he was protesting a Democratic proposal to raise taxes on
investment profits for households with income above $250,000.

So now everyone except the Democrats in Congress and
the President know the answer to the question of when Dems will learn that
Republicans don’t deal, that they don’t bargain in good faith and that they
will not put the country ahead of their own partisan political beliefs.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

But Having a Full Clip Ready to Murder People – That’s a God
Given Right

In order to
demonstrate his point about gun control and access to large clips of ammunition
for automatic weapons, clips that enable those guns to kill a large number of
people, NBC’s David Gregory showed one on TV.
Now he is under
investigation by the D. C. police for possible criminal violations.

WASHINGTON — The Metropolitan
Police Department said on Wednesday that it had opened an investigation into
whetherNBCandDavid Gregory, the host of “Meet
the Press,” broke the law when Mr. Gregory displayed a high-capacity gun
magazine duringan interview on Sundaywith
the vice president of theNational Rifle Association.

See such actions are illegal in D. C. even though
they are legal elsewhere. In truth of
course an empty ammunition clip never did any harm to anyone. But a full one was used in the Newtown shootings, and a
full one is perfectly legal in almost every part of the nation.

So had Mr. Gregory used a full ammunition clip along
with an assault rifle to illustrate his point by mowing down a bunch of people,
he would, at least in the eyes of the NRA and other “guns rights no matter who
has to die” groups have been exercising his Constitutional rights. They would
deplore the loss of life, of course, but readily claim that the fact that
people die is just part of what the Founding Fathers wanted when the wrote the
Constitution and adopted the Bill of Rights.

In fact no where does it say in the Bill of Rights
that anyone has the right not to be killed by an assault rifle, so there you are.

It has become
increasingly likely and what everybody expect political pundits knows which
is that there will
not be a deal on taxes and spending before January 1. This means that at least some tax rates will revert to the Clinton era levels, not a
bad things since that era resulted in high growth, high employment and a
balanced budget.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, warned Thursday morning that there was scant time to put together a Congressional deal to avert the impending fiscal crisis and that no resolution was in sight.

Guess what, the world
will not end if this happens. There
will still be plenty of time to fix things, and the good news is that whatever
plan is put forth the Republicans cannot say they are voting for higher
taxes. Higher taxes will have already
occurred. So Republicans could vote for
the President’s Plan and claim they voted for a huge middle class tax cut.

Wow, just think what
could be accomplished if Republicans really wanted to work for what’s good
for the country and give up their policy of voting solely for political
reasons.

Everyone is familiar with the baby boom and most people are
familiar with the baby bust. The high
birth rates of the postwar era followed by the very low birth rates of the post
postwar era are producing a nation of old people. These old people want health care and they
want social security and they want everyone else to pay for it. All of this produces all sorts of political
and economic turmoil, as the last few weeks lay witness to.

Now it turns out things are going to get worse, not
better. The long term projections, like
really long term show a lot
more old people than everyone thought just four years ago.

On December 12th the
Census Bureau said America’s
projected population would rise 27% to 400m by 2050. That is 9% less than it
projected for that year back in 2008. Those 65 and over will grow to 22% of the
population by 2060 from 14% now, while the working-age population slips to 57%
from 63%.

What does this mean?
It means fewer people are going to be working to support more
people. Contrary to what everyone
thinks, a country does not make more money by lowering taxes, or having the
stock market go up. It makes more money
when more people are working. And in the
future less people will be working.

Of course much of this could be changed by an intelligent
immigration policy. Anyone see an
intelligent immigration policy coming?
Really, anyone?

Saturday, December 29, 2012

The 2012 Presidential
election was clear cut on one issue. The President campaigned on the
proposal to extend the Bush era tax cuts for everyone making less than
$250,000. And the President won.

So now the President
is proposing to raise that number to $400,000. The reasons, well no one else has been able
to think of a single reason why the President has to do this, but because of
the brilliance of this site, The Dismal Political Economist has found three
valid reasons why the President would renege on his positions and agree to cut
taxes for those making more than $250,000.
Here they are.

The
President has found out that when he compromises only a little bit with
Republicans they accept his offer graciously and agree to major
compromises in their proposals.

Republicans
will say bad things about the President if he doesn’t compromise, but if
he does they will praise him and call him a great leader.

Americans of the
current age are used to each year bringing an improvement. There is a raise in salary, a better house, a
newer car and more money for discretionary pleasurable events like the ball
game, or eating out at a nice restaurant.
This increase had been taking place for over a century. It is coming to an end.

The decline in growth
rates is nice documented by Robert Gordon in a nicely
written article in the review section of the Wall Street Journal. Here is the gist of what he is saying.

Between 1891 and 2007, the
nation achieved a robust 2% annual growth rate of output per person.
Unfortunately, the evidence suggests to me that future economic growth will
achieve at best half that historic rate. The old rate allowed the American
standard of living to double every 35 years; for most people in the future that
doubling may take a century or more.

The causes are clear,
a lack of massive innovation opportunities and the aging of a population
which has moved to a service dominated economy. Here is a good example of why past advances
will not be present in the future.

The profound boost that these
innovations gave to economic growth would be difficult to repeat. Only once
could transport speed be increased from the horse (6 miles per hour) to theBoeing707
(550 mph). Only once could outhouses be replaced by running water and indoor
plumbing. Only once could indoor temperatures, thanks to central heating and
air conditioning, be converted from cold in winter and hot in summer to a
uniform year-round climate of 68 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

Notice that this inevitable trend is independent of
economic policy. There is no such rule
that progress has to come every year. It
is true that Conservative policy will make things worse than they need to be, as Europe is now finding out, but even correct policy will not offset the fact that a population that is
stagnating and becoming ever more dominated by the elderly will not produce
vibrant growth.

Even if we assume that
innovation produces a cornucopia of wonders beyond my expectations, the economy
still faces formidable headwinds. The retirement of the baby boomers and the
continuing exodus of prime-age males from the labor force, sometimes called the
"missing fifth," are reducing hours worked per member of the
population. American educational attainment continues to slide ever-downward in
the international league tables, due to cost inflation at our universities, $1
trillion in student loans, abysmal test scores and large numbers of high-school
dropouts.

What this largely means is that individual goals will
change. They will not be centered on
personal economic growth, but on holding on to what one has.

The finances of the
NRA, the people committed to making sure that there is no barrier to any
American owning multiple assault weapons with large magazine clips is public
information. So one reporter at Forbes
magazine decided
to take a look.

The NRA is big business.
It’s revenues topped the $225 million level. Where was the money spent?

About $33 million went to salaries and wages
(not including the top brass), $28 million went to advertising and promotions.
By far the biggest items were membership outreach: $57 million for membership
communications, $24 million for printing and shipping, $16 million for
educational programs. Just about $10 million went to the NRA’s lobbying arm,
the Institute for Legislative Action.

More than $12.7 million went toAkron-Ohiobased InfoCision, a huge telemarketing
company that lists a broad spectrum of blue chip non-profits as clients–
includingSmile Train, theAmerican Diabetes Association,Easter Sealsand
Unicef—as well as the College Republican National Committee and companies like
Time Warner and AT&T.

Ah yes, less than 10% of the money raised goes towards programs to promote propert gun handling, gun safety and other instructional activities. Or other words, most of the money the NRA raises is used to spend money on raising money for the NRA and paying really nice salaries. So working for the NRA is a nice job.

As for salaries, fifty-six people in the
organization earned more than $100,000 in 2010—and 10 made more than $250,000.
Lapierre does not top the list. Kayne B. Robinson, the executive director of
general operations does. He was paid just over $1 million. Lapierre was second,
pulling in $970,000 in reportable and estimated comp.

Chris
W. Cox, the executive director of the group’s lobbying efforts, was third. He
earned just over $666,000.

No, The Dismal Political Economist is not sure what
any of this means with respect to the debate over gun rights and the right to
possess weapons subject to zero regulation and control. He just thought it was interesting that not only do people that work for the NRA get to fulfill their lifelong dream of making automatic weapons available for everyone, they also make a nice living off of doing so.

South Carolina
Republican Jim DeMint did the country a great service earlier this month by
resigning from the Senate to take a plus job with a partisan think tank. His replacement will be Representative Tim
Scott who is currently serving out his term in the House.

The House of
Representatives just decided not to approve a Republican plan that would
have allowed the Bush era tax cuts to remain for everyone making less than $1
million a year, because, horror upon horror, it would have raised taxes on
those making more than $ 1 million a year.
Here
is how Representative Scott reacted.

On his way to pay his
respects to Inouye, Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said he had “no clue” what was
happening with Plan B. Asked whether he planned to vote for it, he said again:
“I have no clue.”

Ah yes, the mantra of a South Carolina Republican, a
phrase that always fits, “I have no clue”.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Typical Conservative Reaction to Democracy – Democracy Doesn’t
Work When It Results in Non-Conservative Winners

For many people
voting in the United States is an extremely difficult process. For some reason it takes place on Tuesdays,
and in many precincts, particularly where there are minority or low income voters
there are insufficient resources, resulting in long lines and long hours to
vote.

So the recent trend
among the more enlightened officials
is to make voting easier. But this is
highly offensive to Conservatives, who tend to lose elections when there is a
more honest process. So Washington Post’s
George Will rants
and rails against efforts by the Feds to make voting more accessible. And then makes this argument.

Notice the perverse
dialectic by which Washington
aggrandizes its power: It promises to ameliorate problems exacerbated by its
supposedly ameliorative policies. Notice, too, the logic of Perez’s thesis that
“our democracy is stronger when more people have a say in electing their
leaders.” Therefore the public good would be served by penalizing nonvoting, as
Australia, Belgium and at
least 10 other countries do. Liberals
love mandates (e.g., health insurance). Why not mandatory voting?

Mandatory voting?
Really? (and yes, Mr. Will conveniently forgets that mandatory health insurance was a Conservative initiative and that the only place it exists is in Massachusetts where that raving Liberal Mitt Romney put it in place) Does anyone have even
the smallest shred of evidence that this is what the government is trying to do? No they don’t.

Oh, we see it. The
Feds are trying to make voter REGISTRATION easier, and this means the Feds
are trying to make voting mandatory.

And Yes, Mr. Will is what passes as intellectual heft
in Conservatives circles. As for
Republicans, look for continued efforts to restrict voting by reducing
resources, creating long lines in Democratic precincts and cutting back on
early voting. After all, if you can’t
win fairly, as Conservatives cannot, then you have to win unfairly.

Once again Conservatives show that with respect to voting they belong, well they belong in Communist countries, not democratic ones.

No rational person
can fail to be cheered up when reading an editorial from the ultra Conservative
morons who pen that stuff for the editorial of the Wall Street Journal. For today’s laugh here
is their take on John Boehner’s so-called Plan B.

Consider
the tax increase now being touted as a sign of "compromise." SpeakerJohn Boehnerhas
moved from opposing higher tax rates to offering higher rates for incomes above
$1 million a year. While that's better than the scheduled increase on incomes
above $200,000 a year (for singles), it would still put the GOP on record as
endorsing a tax increase, in particular on small businesses that file
individual returns.

What the Journal is referring to as small businesses
are S corporations, partnerships and LLC’s that are pass through entities. A business organized this way does not pay
taxes, instead the taxable income flows through to the owners, who include the
taxable income on their own tax returns.

And notice this little bit of tax illiteracy by the
WSJ editors.

This
isn't reform. It's another tax increase next year disguised as reform. The
Fortune 500 CEOs who are lobbying Republicans don't mind because they hope to
get a cut in the corporate tax rate. But small businesses will be stuck with a
huge immediate tax increase, at least until their owners can scramble to
reorganize as corporations instead of Subchapter S companies or LLCs.

See, first of all converting an S Corporation or LLC to a C
corporation is about the easiest thing in the world. But the reason most will not do it is because
the S Corporation and the LLC’s allow tax free dividends, while C Corporations
do not. So this paragraph is tax
nonsense. Yes, you would think someone
writing for the Wall Street Journal would know basic tax policy, but read what
they say over time and it is clear that is not a requirement for authoring
these pieces.

So under Mr. Boehner’s plan, which was never going to
be enacted, (even Republicans opposed it) according to the Wall Street Journal a business is a “small
business” that returns more than $1 million to each of its owners. Well, if that’s the best you can do WSJ, that’s
the best you can do. But thanks for the
early laughing, and we cannot wait to see your next installment.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Reporting This Story Because Everyone Needs a Good Laugh
While Facing a Fiscal Cliff

Few men have lusted after the Presidency more than Mitt
Romney. First elected Governor of
Massachusetts in 2002, Romney for all purposes abandoned the job in 2004 to start
his run for the Presidency. His strategy
then, get rid of the image of moderate Mitt and reinvent himself as a
conservative Republican.

Eight years and about eight reinventions later Mitt won the
Republican nomination. But he was out of
reinventions, and left with his last impersonation as a say anything – do anything
candidate he lost. But Mitt has one
more personality transplant in him, from desperate to be the President to
reluctant candidate.

December 23, 2012

Said Romney's eldest son: "He wanted to be
president less than anyone I've met in my life. He had no desire to run."

He added: "If he could have found someone
else to take his place... he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a
very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but
he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn't love the
attention."

Yep there it is, Mitt Romney, a core of dishonesty to the
end. His next role, starring in a short
movie as the fox in an Aesop fable movie.
The co-star, a bunch of grapes.

The nation mourns the
deaths of those who died when a deranged man with access to an arsenal of
automatic weapons and large ammunition clips murdered school personnel and
elementary students. Twenty seven people
died. Twenty
six are being memorialized.

At the foot of the
street leading to Sandy Hook Elementary, 26
Christmas trees stand to honor the dead at the school, each bearing the name of
a victim, but no Nancy Lanza.

Outside the Newtown Convenience and Deli in the town center, 26 small
plastic Christmas trees with twinkling blue and purple lights stand next to a
sign that says, “In loving memory of the Sandy Hook
victims.”

The University of Connecticut
honored the shooting victims Monday with a ceremony before a men’s basketball
game, with 26 students standing at center court holding lighted candles.

The 27th victim was Nancy Lanza, mother of
the killer. The reason she is not
recognized is basic and simple.

“I
am feeling that there is more anger toward the mother than there is toward the
son,” said Lisa Sheridan, a Newtown
parent.

“Why
would a woman who had a son like this, who clearly had serious issues, keep
assault rifles in the house and teach him how to shoot them?” she said. “To
deal with that, there’s a feeling here that we’re just going to focus on the 26
innocent people who died at the school.”

Ms. Lanza is dead however, a murder victim like
everyone else.

Nancy Lanza apparently broke no laws and suffered a violent, tragic
death. People who knew her — those who played in her regular dice game and
those who saw her at her regular restaurant — said she was devoted to her son
and kind and generous to others. They see her as a victim like any of the
others.

But unlike all the
other dead and wounded Ms. Lanza was a perpetrator, a person who provided
access to automatic weapons to a son who used them in the most horrific
manner. So no, she does not deserve to
be among those memorialized. She just
deserves to be remembered as someone who in exercising her rights to obtain
automatic weapons caused the death of 26 other people, including 20 children.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

The Ghost of Christmas Future Relates How Child Health Care
Works With Conservatives in Charge

[Editor’s Note:
Following are three short versions of the popular Christmas story, all
telling what it would be like if Republicans implemented their plans for health
care in the United States.]

VERSION 1

Marley
was dead. Well of course he was
dead. He had used up his lifetime limit
of Medicare benefits and when he went to the Emergency Room for treatment he
was told he had to have three bids from health care providers before he could
be treated. Marley died after getting
the second bid, his eyes closed up over the fine print in the contract that
absolved the physician from all liability.

So
Bob Cratchit went to the surving partner of the firm, Mr. Scrooge, and asked if
there could now be some new health care plans.
Scrooge had recently undergone a transformation from greedy boss to
benevolent supervisor. “Of course my boy”
said Scrooge, “we have this new program that will be completely paid for by the firm of Marley and Scrooge. It is, of course, a high deductible plan.”

The
high deductible amount for the plan was a modest $225,000. “We will cover everything after you pay the
first $225,000” said Scrooge magnanimously.
“Bob, your only other costs will be the income tax you have to pay on
the premium benefit we give you.”

Bob
Cratchit left the offices speechless.
And not in a good way.

VERSION 2

Marley
was dead. Well of course he was
dead. At the age of 72 he had not yet
qualified for Medicare because Republicans had raised the age to 75, and his
health insurance company had dropped him because in their words “you are likely
to get sick and file a claim”. After his
heart attack the emergency room care was delayed while he mortgaged his house
to pre-pay for the hospital stay, and right in the middle of the appraisal
process he dropped dead.

So
Bob Cratchit went to the surviving partner of the firm, Mr. Scrooge and asked
about new health care plans. “Oh my dear
boy” said Scrooge, “of course we have plants that cover your family. Now none of the plans will cover pre-existing
conditions, so Tiny Tim will not receive any treatment for that leg disease
that will eventually kill him, but any new ailments he develops will be
covered.”

When
Cratchit asked about deductibles Scrooge assured him there would be none, but
Scrooge did inform his dedicated and loyal employee that the co-pay would be
124% of the bill, the extra amount being use to cover the profit requirement
surcharge of the insurance company.

Bob
Cratchit left the offices speechless.
And not in a good way.

VERSION 3

Marley
was dead. Well of course he was
dead. After suffering from a
debilitating disease he found out his insurance did not cover that particular
ailment. Marley was puzzled since the
denial occurred before the ailment was diagnosed, but the insurance company
explained that their coverage limitations were not based on a particular type
of illness, but on the expected cost of treatment. Before paying a claim the company required a
total cost estimate from the health care provider, and if that cost was in
excess of $575.00 the claim was automatically denied.

So
Bob Cratchit went to the surviving partner of the firm, Mr. Scrooge and asked
about health care plans. “Sorry said
Scrooge, employers no longer provide health care insurance, but here is a list
of companies that you can buy individual coverage from. Good luck, let us know how it turns out.”

Cratchit
found out that each application required about 11 hours to fill out, but since
his son Tiny Tim was suffering a serious leg degenerative disease he took the
time to apply to seven companies. Six of
the companies turned him down, and the seventh approved his application. But subsequent investigation by that firm determined
that Cratchit has committed insurance fraud, because he inadvertently listed
the left leg of Tiny Tim as the one with the problem, when it was the right
leg.

Because
the insurance company found fraud in the application, Cratchit was denied
eligibility for any coverage. He took
his case to an attorney, who for an upfront fee of $35,000 promised to pursue
legal action to right this horrible wrong, and who predicted that after working
its way through the court system Cratchit would be vindicated in about 9 years. “We would expect compensation for pain and
suffering also” said the attorney, “except that is no longer allowed”.

Bob
Cratchit left the lawyer’s offices speechless.
And not in a good way.

[Editor's note: The following post has been deemed inappropriate for posting on this holiday.]

The NRA, the defender
of the right of everyone to own an unlimited number of automatic weapons
whose only function is to kill other human beings has advocated putting
armed guards in every school.

In his first extensive public
remarks since last week’s mass shooting at a Connecticut school, the head of National
Rifle Association on Friday called for lawmakers to take action to put police
officers in all schools in an effort to curb such violent outbreaks.

Given the sway that the NRA has over the American
body politic, it is entirely possible that this policy could be
implemented. If so, here is a potential
news story from 2016 about the results.

Gunman, Armed
Guards Shoot it Out

and Over 150 Students
are killed

Topeka, Ka (AP) – March 17, 2016. Authorities today are investigating the death
of 157 students and teachers at a local high school where a gun battle between
a young man armed with three automatic weapons, 17 ammunition clips and a
bazooka walked into a school and engaged in a firefight with the armed guard
who was patrolling the halls. The attack
happened at the end of lunch hour, as hundreds of students were returning to
classrooms.

Although details
are not yet available, it appears that the armed guard, upon seeing the
intruder opened fire with his machine gun, spraying bullets across and entire
hallway and instantly killing over 70 students.
The gunfire resulted in a panic in the school, as almost all classrooms
emptied, many sending students into the path of fire between the guard and the
gunman. Because of the size of the magazines
in the guns and the rapid fire, in a little less than 5 seconds over 780 shots
were fired, killing or wounding everyone within sight.

The armed guard,
whose guns have been determined to have been responsible for almost all of the
deaths was posted in the school as part of a policy to protect students after
Kansas Republicans removed any and all restrictions on weapon ownership. Citing basic human rights the Republicans
said that any restriction against gun ownership violated “God’s law and man’s
law”. To offset criticism the
Republicans passed laws placing at least one armed guard in every school, with
the costs to be paid for by reducing three classroom teachers in each school.

Notes taken from
the gunman’s home indicated that he planned to ambush the guard and then go on
a rampage. However, because the guard
had been trained to shoot immediately at anyone he found to be acting
suspiciously the guard opened fire before the gunman could get off his first
shot. While those shots missed, the
guard was given credit for preventing massive deaths by the gunman, even though
massive deaths occurred because of the guard’s wild and reckless shooting.

“I know the kids
that died were happy in that they had been shot by a guard rather than by a
deranged lunatic” said a spokesman for the Republican dominated school
board. “And yes, it is true that 157
students and teachers died, but the guard should be commended for killing the
armed intruder with minimal loss of life”.
The spokesman went on to add that “this tragedy just shows why the
students themselves should have been armed, because if they were they could
have shot both the intruder and the guard and prevented much of the death and
destruction.”

Following the
massacre Democrats and independents once again called for regulation of fire
arms, followed by the NRA saying guns didn’t kill these people, people killed
these people.

With the debacle on fiscal policy and taxes still crowding
the center of the stage a little noticed problem is that there is no Farm
Bill. The Farm Bill is the massive
legislation that preserves depression era welfare for large farming
operations. At the end of this year if
Congress does not act,
there is no current farm legislation.

Lost in the political
standoff between the Obama administration and Congressional Republicans over
the budget is a virtually forgotten impasse over a farm bill that covers billions of
dollars in agriculture programs.

The immediate impact, the government would be forced to buy
milk at about $8.00 a gallon.

Without
last-minute Congressional action, the government would have to follow an
antiquated 1949 farm law that would force Washington to buy milk at wildly inflated
prices, creating higher prices in the dairy case. Milk now costs an average of
$3.65 a gallon.

Higher
prices would be based on what dairy farm production costs were in 1949, when
milk production was almost all done by hand. Because of adjustments for inflation
and other technical formulas, the government would be forced by law to buy milk
at roughly twice the current market prices to maintain a stable milk market.

While this is a temporary windfall for milk producers, it is
a disaster for industries that consume milk and consumers.

Farmers,
at first, would experience a financial windfall as they rushed to sell dairy
products to the government at higher prices than those they would get on the
commercial market. Then the prices customers pay at the supermarket would surge
as shortages developed and fewer gallons of milk were available for consumers
and for manufacturers of products like cheese and butter.

Of course, now would be a good time to end the program of
price supports for milk altogether, since the current wholesale price of milk
is above the current (not 1940’s) support price level. Expect to see Conservatives like Paul Ryan from dairy states
like Wisconsin
argue for the elimination of the program.
Right, just after you see the dairy cows fly.

The idea that Bernard
Madoff carried off his swindle all by himself is just as preposterous as
the returns he purported to earn on his investments. But so far no one else has gone to jail or
been punished, except for an old foolish accountant who was an ignorant man
caught in the scheme unintentionally.
But this
has now changed.

___________________________

Madoff’s
brother sentenced to 10 years

NEW YORK – Peter Madoff will serve 10 years in prison for his role in his
older brother's multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, a US judge said on Thursday.

Peter Madoff, 67, pleaded guilty in June to criminal charges
including conspiracy to commit securities fraud for falsifying the books and
records of the investment advisory company founded by his brother, Bernard
Madoff.

______________________________

And there is this happy footnote to the process.

He agreed at the time not to oppose a request by prosecutors
for a maximum 10-year prison sentence and agreed to an order requiring him to
forfeit a symbolic $143.1bn. US.

Of course Peter Madoff does not have $143 billion, but it is
still nice to see he has to give it up anyway.
As for his crimes.

Peter Madoff, a lawyer,
had been chief compliance officer and a senior managing director at the firm,
Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.

Prosecutors
say he helped create false and misleading documents designed to make it appear
that the firm had an effective compliance programme. If the firm had such a
programme, prosecutors said it would have shown that no real trades were taking
place.

Peter
Madoff also transferred millions of dollars within the Madoff family to avoid
tax payments to the Internal Revenue Service and also put his wife on the
firm's payroll in a no-show job.

And as for his future, one can only hope that his
lawyer was correct in this prediction.

"Peter's
life has been shattered by his brother's Ponzi scheme as well as his own
conduct and guilty plea, and he will almost certainly live out his remaining
days as a jobless pariah, in or out of prison," Wing wrote.

And no, that does not make up for his crime, or give
any solace to his victims, but it sure makes the rest of us feel a little more
jolly this holiday season.

Convincing and Final Evidence Whey This Man Should Never
Have Even Been Considered for the Supreme Court

Brad DeLong and his
wonderful economics blog have an
extended post with part of the transcript of the confirmation hearings of
the late Robert Bork to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. Here is just one example of why this man was
not qualified for the court, and in this case an example so egregious that only
one example is needed.

And let me tell you
one other thing, Senator. For my sins I was approached by a three-judge
district court in Connecticut and said they
had just struck down the plan put in by the legislature and would I serve as a
special master to redistrict Connecticut.
I said, Judge Blumenfeld, I have just written that one man, one vote is a fiasco (emphasis added) --and
that was my word, I am afraid--but I will do it.

And yes, the concept of “equal protection under the
law” was totally foreign to Mr. Bork.
Why do you ask?

As the football
season winds down and the basketball playoff are still far in the future
one remaining entertaining sport is watching Conservatives argue positions
using logic that is the opposite of real logic.
Case in point is the issue of limiting charitable deductions and the top
income tax rate.

Basic logic says that
charities are better off with a higher tax rate, because the deduction for
charitable is giving has a higher value the higher the tax rate is. And anyone can see that limiting deductions does
not work in the best interests of charities.
But the Wall Street Journal, bless their soul, has
found someone to argue just the opposite.
And entertaining reading it is.

If nonprofits knew
what was good for them, they would be focusing less on preserving the
charitable deduction and more on economic growth and wealth creation. As the
dreaded fiscal cliff approaches, they should be lobbying for a tax system that
lowers rates and eliminates loopholes, allowing capital—including charitable
capital—to flow to its most productive use. The resulting prosperity would do
much more for charities than preserving their own special carve-out from a
punitive tax structure.

So what’s the data to support this? Well here is some

The
Tax Foundation has compiled data looking at charitable deductions taken by the
"Fortunate 400" wealthiest tax returns since 1992. The data show that
these households' share of all charitable deductions, which have largely
followed the business cycle over the past 15 years, increased substantially
after the Bush tax cuts lowered the top marginal rate to 35% from 39.6%.

Oh yes, the wealthiest increased their share of
contributions. Duh. The wealthiest increased their share of
contributions because the wealthiest increased their share of national income. Given basic policy of the last several
decades that has resulted in a huge shift of wealth and income to the top
tiers, of course their share of charitable giving increased as a percent of the
total.

And then there is this graph.

Of course it shows no such thing as lower taxes
resulting in higher giving. It leaves
out income distribution, again, which is what is really going on here.

But conservatives facing the well know bias against them of
math, logic and analysis have to come up with some explanation of why their
policies should work. Unfortunately for
them this is about the best they can do.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

The can be no blaming
of the massacre of school children in Newtown,
Connecticut on anyone other than
the insane man who did the shooting. But
the town of Newtown
does stand for an environment that allowed this deranged individual to have
access to the weapons that he used in his horrific acts. Here is what
it is like to live in Newtown.

But in the last couple of years, residents began noticing loud, repeated
gunfire, and even explosions, coming from new places. Near a trailer park. By a
boat launch. Next to well-appointed houses. At 2:20 p.m. on one Wednesday last
spring, multiple shots were reported in a wooded area on Cold Spring Road near South Main Street, right across the road
from an elementary school.

Why? Because in Newtown,
as in all across America,
resident refuse to enact even the most basic protections against dangerous use
of firearms.

Yet
recent efforts by the police chief and other town leaders to gain some control
over the shooting and the weaponry turned into a tumultuous civic fight, with
traditional hunters and discreet gun owners opposed by assault weapon
enthusiasts, and a modest tolerance for bearing arms competing with the staunch
views of a gun industry trade association, the National Shooting Sports
Foundation, which has made Newtown its home.

No, this is not a war
zone. It sometimes just sounds like one.

Much
of the gunfire and the explosions reported by residents to the police in recent
months came from a spot less than three miles from their house. Police logs
identified the spot as one of the town’s many unlicensed gun ranges, where the
familiar noise of hunting rifles has grown to include automatic gunfire and
explosions that have shaken houses.

“It
was like this continuous, rapid fire,” said Amy Habboush, who was accustomed to
the sound of gunfire but became alarmed last year when she heard what sounded
like machine guns, though she did not complain to the police. “It was a
concern. We knew there was target practice, but we hadn’t heard that noise
before.”

And opposition to
unlimited shooting in the town has been strong.

A
second committee gathering in September drew such a large crowd that the
meeting was moved into a high school cafeteria, where the opposition grew
fierce. “This is a freedom that should never be taken away,” one woman said.
Added another, “Teach kids to hunt, you will never have to hunt your kids.”

“No
safety concerns exist,” the National Shooting Sports Foundation spokesman said,
according to the minutes.

And no, restrictions
on shooting in public next to schools and houses would not have prevented what
happened in that town. But they might
prevent the accidental shooting of the next victim.

And yes, there is the
final, disgusting response of those who want their gun rights at the expense
of the lives and safety of others, of those who believe so strongly in their
own rights that if 20 children and 7 adults have to die in a horrendous
shooting, too bad.

Scott
Ostrovsky, said he and his friends had been shooting automatic weapons since he
bought the 23-acre property more than 12 years ago. It is safe, he said,
because his land is sandwiched between two other gun ranges, the 123-acre
Pequot hunting club and the 500-acre Fairfield
club.

The
explosions his neighbors hear are targets that are legally available at hunting
outlets. “If you’re good old boys like we are, they are exciting,” he said. He
said he was distraught at the school massacre but said guns should not be made
the “scapegoat.”

“Guns
are why we’re free in this country, and people lose sight of that when
tragedies like this happen,” he said. “A gun didn’t kill all those children, a
disturbed man killed all those children.”

House Republicans Trying to Pass Bill Raising Taxes on
People Making $1 million a Year –

They Don’t Bother With Election Results

One thing that was
clear in the 2012 Presidential election was that President Obama’s tax
policy was to return to Clinton
era tax rates on those making more than $250k a year. A second thing that was clear is that Mr.
Obama won by a fairly large margin; the
election was not in doubt and it was not close.

So Republicans in the
House have decided that what they need to do, if they can get the votes, (update: which they cannot) is
to return to Clinton era tax rates on those making
$ 1 million a year, and call it compromise.

House Speaker John A.
Boehner (R-Ohio) called on Senate leaders Thursday to schedule a vote on his
plan to extend
tax cuts on income up to $1 million — known as Plan B — if it
passes the House later in the day.

This is the Speaker of the House’s position.

“For
weeks, the White House said if I moved on rates, they would make substantial
concessions on spending cuts and entitlement reforms,” Boehner said. “I did my
part. They’ve done nothing.”

Reality of course is different.

In
fact, Obama has counteroffered a proposal to trim Social Security benefits and
extend the tax cuts for families earning as much as $400,000 a year — up from
the $250,000 limit that he had stipulated during his presidential reelection campaign.

It’s like living in rerun
hell. The fact that there will regularly be a
massive shooting by a deranged person with unlimited access to automatic
weapons is now a given. Also a given,
the reaction by politicians and gun rights and gun control advocates
alike. In fact, the three groups seem to
have agreed upon a specific script, which plays out something like this.

Scene A modern, loving caring American community
devastated by gun violence.

The Players The Usual Suspects

The Script

Everyone: Oh this is horrible, how terrible, we must do
something. This must never happen again.

Gun Control Advocates:
It’s the President’s fault, he needs to do something. Why doesn’t he do something. We don’t blame the ‘unlimited guns for
everyone’ crowd who block any type of regulation of fire arms. It’s the fault of those who want regulation,
because they didn’t do anything.

Congress: Let’s let a
few members introduce legislation, when things die down we will kill it.

NRA and its Allies:
Gun control never solved this problem.
We will defeat any legislator who tries to ban our Constitutionally
right to own bazookas, tanks, or cruise missles.

Crazies: Let’s arm
every school teacher and principal. They
can shoot it out with the assassins who invade the school.

Work Arounders: Maybe
we can just control ammunition, limit the number of bullets, sure that will fix
things.

The Victims: (quiet,
they can’t say anything)

The Final Act

The curtain falls as soon as a new story takes it place,
like Lindsey Lohan being arrested. The script
is then put back into the files, to be dusted off and used again and again.

Conservatives Who Believe in Local Government are Siding with
the Local Government are Not So Strangely Silent

The good citizens
of the northern Colorado town of Longmont have decided by
the democratic process to
ban hydraulic fracking in their town.

Ed Andrieski/Associated Press

A rig in Frederick, Colo., near Longmont. In November, citizens of Longmont voted overwhelmingly to ban fracking despite heavy opposition from the oil and gas industry.

The measure, the first of its kind in the state, still allows oil and
gas drilling within city limits, but it prohibits hydraulic fracturing, which
has lifted energy production across the country but has raised concerns about
air and water contamination.

The oil and gas
industry is outraged, outraged that some community does not want to allow
what could be very environmentally dangerous activity in its town. So it is suing.

The oil and gas association said the ban amounted
to a prohibition on all efforts to tap the estimated $500 million in oil and
gas resources locked in the rocks deep beneath Longmont.

“The ban is illegal, and we expect it to be
overturned by the courts,” said Tisha Schuller, the president of the group.

This Forum has no
idea is such a ban is legal. But it
does know that Conservatives say they regard local government control as a
sacred part of their beliefs. And so
far, Conservatives have not been heard from.
Maybe its because even more sacred to them is the oil and gas industry?

The death of former U. S. Solicitor
General and failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork has brought forth an
examination of the nature of conservative philosophy with respect for the law
and the Constitution. First
to comment is one of the more polarizing and intellectually bankrupt of the
Conservative philosophers, John Podhoretz.

What Mr. Podhoretz tries to do is to eulogize Mr. Bork. What he succeeds in doing is to expose what
Conservative judges really want, which is a literal interpretation of laws and
the Constitution that leaves Conservative positions untouched and obliterates
positions with which Conservatives disagree.
The most famous of these involves a case in which the state of Connecticut banned the
sale of contraceptives. Conservatives
hate the idea of contraception, because it removes the risk of unwanted
pregnancy from couples engaging in private activity which Conservatives don’t
want them to do. So incredibly enough,
Conservatives believe that the government has a right to ban contraception.

You asked him about
his views of cases like Griswold v. Connecticut,
involving the privacy of sexual acts in the bedroom, and he said the case had
been wrongly decided not because there should be no privacy but because he
could locate no right to privacy in the Constitution. This was, he said, a
matter for legislatures, not courts.

Think about what is being said here. The principles of the Constitution do not
provide any right to privacy, any right for men and women to be left alone in
the privacy of their homes by government! Government has the right to regulate any private behavior that it wants
to. That this is the very antithesis of the real Conservatism is lost on people like Mr. Bork and Mr. Podhoretz. In their non-democratic world if
government wants to pursue their policy of enforcing their behavior on others,
it has the right to do so.

We saw that this philosophy was still present among faux conservatives when Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum and others argued that while they were against a policy of putting gay and lesbian people in jail because they were gay or lesbians, the government certainly had the authority and right to do so if it chose to do so.

Of course, abortion rights is the big issue here. Read these sentences and see if you can find
anything admirable with respect to either the author or the subject. (and notice the ugly personal cowardly attack on the late Senator Kennedy, who is conveniently deceased and thus unable to defend himself).

Bob
Bork became a sacrificial lamb for, among others, Ted Kennedy, who had
experience. This one would not drown; this one Kennedy would only libel by
accusing him of wanting to return America to the days in which women
got abortions with coat hangers. Why? For the crime of arguing, honestly and
correctly, that Roe v. Wade, which somehow found a right to abortion in
the language of a document that never mentioned abortion, was a travesty.

And yes, the Constitution never mentions assault rifles
either, but somehow Conservatives find in that document the right for anyone to
acquire such a weapon. Why, because in
that case the interpretation fits their pre-disposed views.

Finally there is this.

Bork
was exactly the sort of choice serious-minded people should have welcomed. The
Court had been in large measure the province of lightweights who were
considered politically safe or somehow controllable, men who possessed no
intellectual compass and were either the captives of their clerks or of the
conventional wisdom.

Could a more eloquent passage have ever been written about
Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia or the other Conservative hacks who have sat or
now sit on the Court?

And as far a bias against Conservatives for the Court is
concerned, even Mr. Podhoretz has to acknowledge this historical fact.

Only
a year earlier, Antonin Scalia had been affirmed by a 98-0 vote in the Senate,

and he conveniently leaves out the information that a number
of Republicans voted against confirming Robert Bork for the Supreme Court. But that’s the way Conservatives act in
intellectual discussions, only the facts that are on their side are
acknowledged.

Robert Bork was denied confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice. Had he prevailed, and had his philosophy prevailed government would have had the power and authority to regulate every aspect of citizen behavior. That could be called fascism, it could be called communism. It could not be called democracy.